Oct 19, 2017 | Renee Bullock-Palmer, MD,
FACC, FASNC, FASE, FSCCT
Feature Article

This year’s 22nd annual American Society of Nuclear Cardiology (ASNC) scientific meeting was held in the beautiful Kansas City, Missouri, on Sept. 14 - 17. It was an excellent meeting under the direction of the ASNC 2017 program chair Donna Polk, MD, MPH, FACC, and vice-chair Sharmila Dorbala, MBBS, FACC, as well as ASNC President Raymond Russell, MD, PhD, FACC. There were disease-specific sessions focused on infiltrative heart diseases such as cardiac sarcoidosis and cardiac amyloidosis, hands-on reading sessions with the experts, case-based sessions and rapid fire ePoster sessions.

The opening plenary session was highlighted by the 2017 Mario Verani lecturer, Leslee Shaw, PHD, FACC, who delivered an excellent, thought-provoking and inspiring lecture titled, “Evolving, Innovating and Revolutionary Changes in Cardiovascular Imaging — We Have Only Begun!” She spoke about the future of cardiovascular imaging, which requires new ways of thinking, and the necessity of generating new areas of research in cardiovascular imaging to benefit our patients and improve their outcomes. This lecture was preceded by the President-elect’s address, which was eloquently delivered by Prem Soman, MD, PhD, FACC, and titled “Nuclear Cardiology – the Case for Optimism.”

Other highlights of the meeting included the innovative collaboration with the new partnership of both ASNC and the American Society of Echocardiography (ASE) with the ImageGuide Registry. This is a very welcomed partnership with the ASE in this landmark registry. For more information, please check out the following website. Participation in this registry is FREE for ASNC members!

The multimodality session on the “Evaluation of Suspected Coronary Artery Disease in Women — A Comparison of the Different Imaging Modalities” was one of the more popular sessions among the attendees, and was very well received with excellent talks delivered by Gary Heller, MD, PhD, FACC; Kavitha Chinnaiyan, MD, FACC; Viviany R. Taqueti, MD, MPH, FACC; and Balaji Tamarappoo, MD, PhD.

"Overall, this meeting highlighted great new ideas in nuclear cardiology imaging, including the development of new applications, new hardware and software technology. It is safe to say that the future of cardiac imaging is very bright." — Renee Bullock-Palmer, MD, FACC, FASNC, FASE, FSCCT

During the afternoon plenary session on the first day of this meeting, there was a very sobering, insightful and unique session on heart failure, including an interview with nationally and internationally renowned cardiologist Rory Hachamovitch, MD, FACC. He shared his perspective as a patient rather than a physician, and was interviewed by James Udelson, MD, FACC, and ACC President Mary Norine Walsh, MD, FACC.

Other highlights of the meeting including excellent talks delivered by Leslee Shaw, PhD, FACC; Daniel S. Berman, MD, FACC; Raymond Gibbons, MD, FACC; and Viviany R Taqueti, MD, MPH, FACC, on the emerging clinical challenge of symptomatic non-obstructive coronary artery disease, including the role of imaging in diagnosing microvascular disease with positron emission tomography (PET) and coronary flow reserve (CFR) in patients with ischemia in the presence of non-obstructive coronary arteries.

There were also presentations on new innovations and ideas in single-photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) imaging with solid-state CFR measurement on the horizon. Additionally, with new solid-state cameras and noise reduction, resolution recovery software with iterative reconstruction, radiation-dose reduction is now a reality for many labs, and is becoming increasingly important in the delivery of high-quality care to our patients with the lowest radiation exposure risk possible. These new cameras and software also allow for more patient-specific protocols to better serve our patients presenting to the imaging lab. There were also several ePosters and presentations on the use of technetium pyrophosphate imaging and diagnosing cardiac ATTR type amyloidosis as an important etiology for heart failure, including in patients presenting for transaortic valve replacement.

There were also excellent sessions on the value of cardiac PET in diagnosing infiltrative heart diseases such as sarcoidosis, establishing a cardiac PET program and the incorporation of myocardial blood flow quantification with cardiac PET into practice.

The rapid ePoster sessions were very well attended, leaving standing room only at many of these sessions held in the exhibit hall.

The ethics session chaired by Andrew Einstein, MD, PhD, FACC, was also another excellent session, with various presentations focused on patient centered imaging, shared decision-making and the informed consent.

Overall, this meeting highlighted great new ideas in nuclear cardiology imaging, including the development of new applications, new hardware and software technology. It is safe to say that the future of cardiac imaging is very bright. I will see you in the beautiful San Francisco next year at ASNC 2018!

Many thanks to the outgoing ASNC President Raymond Russell, MD, PhD, FACC, and congrats to the incoming ASNC President Prem Soman, MD, PhD, FACC!!

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This article was authored by Renee Bullock-Palmer, MD, FACC, FASNC, FASE, FSCCT, cardiologist at the Deborah Heart and Lung Hospital Center in Browns Mills, NJ.